Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Columnating Trump

Not long ago Donald Trump addressed a crowd in Arizona,
where he retrod his undocumented claims about the Mexican government “sending”
its rapists to the US. The venue was a convention center with a capacity of
4,100. Afterwards he tweeted a picture of the audience with the notation, “This
is what 20,000 people looks like.” Perfect.

Donald Trump is indeed perfect. Detail by detail, he
embodies the voter-ideal the Republican hierarchy and its media enforcers have
been working so hard to create: a person to whom facts are irrelevant, whose
idea of strength is the my-way highway, whose definition of patriotism is
bullying braggadocio, and whose answers to the most complicated problems are so
simple they fit on bumper stickers. Nuance? Unwelcome as a climate change
conference. He’s the mephitic spawn of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater. Or maybe he
sprang from the ids of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Alex Jones, Michael Savage,
Ann Coulter, and the rest of our rightwing spewers. It’s as if they each
brought a favorite body part to a lab and stitched him together. His popularity
tells us much about today’s Republican voters.

Rising to political prominence by questioning President
Obama’s birthplace, Trump sent “investigators” to Hawaii where, he claimed,
they were finding “amazing” things which, for some reason, he’s never gotten
around to sharing with us. (Maybe it was pineapples. Pineapples are pretty
amazing over there.) Now he tops the polls and Republican leaders are between a
rock-head and a hard case: to criticize is to disown the denialism and
deceptions they’ve been crafting for years. It’s no mystery why “the base”
admires Donald Trump. He’s born of decades of deliberate disinformation,
efflorescing now like a corpse plant. His ideas are boilerplate: tax the poor, cut needed spending to lower taxes on
the rich, talk tough, reject science, monger fear and resentment. Offering
nothing new, he does it louder.

Predictable as the next round of record-breaking heat, Trump
attacked the agreement with Iran as soon as it was announced. “It’s a
disgrace,” he informed us. “We look so desperate,” he reasoned, as if strict
sanctions leading to years of negotiations involving several countries happened
in a panic. Yes, because anything except war is a sign of weakness, and because
our previous invasions have worked out so well. Trump, of course, wasn’t alone
in opining before the details were made public. Lindsey Graham crawled out from
under his bed to speak to Joe Scarborough, predicting the end of the world. Joe
mostly agreed but allowed as how he’d like to read it first. “Me, too,” said
Mr. Graham, without evident irony.

Not that it’ll make any difference, but experts, including
nuclear scientists and weapons inspectors, have marveled at how airtight the
agreement is. So far, arguments
against it ring hollow. I don’t know if
it’ll work, but apocalyptic claims notwithstanding, it’s hardly naïve. The only way we’ll get past the constant threat
of war is to give Iran’s young people reasons to reject their ayatollahs and
admire the US. After all, we found our way from “you’re with us or with the
terrorists” to offering alternatives. Given the opportunity, they might, too.

Even if they voice objections, Trump has made it impossible
for Republicans to deny their real agenda: illegal immigration and “taking our
country back” are exactly what Tea Partiers have been fed by those wanting to
keep them angry in the wrong direction. Who knows whether Trump’s claims are
deliberate lies or simply uninformed? (He does seem to favor making up numbers on
the spot.) But, exactly as intended, they’re keeping impending oligarchy under the rug,

I’ll admit Trump is facile, if thin-skinned, in interviews.
Wiggling out of tight spots with flimflam, he’ll do well in debates, at least
in the eyes of the fact-averse. Which, I suppose, is the point. Unless their
party produces a candidate with realistic ideas, they may as well go for the
guy who slings it the furthest. And now we have his asinine comments about John
McCain, which, no matter the fallout (because Rs hate[Kerry!] attacks [Cleland!] on decorated
veterans [Duckworth!]), won’t change the fact that a superficial blowhard like
Donald Trump has led the Republican presidential pack.

4 comments:

I remember hearing an interviewer asking Trump about the phantom investigators and Trump getting annoyed and complaining that she was re-hashing old news or talking about ancient history or some such bs. I think the man has surrounded himself with sycophants for so long he just assumes people will believe whatever nonsense he spews with no challenge.

Great analysis... thanks! I read some very interesting posts about how Donny may well be making YOOOOOG waves right now, but he's campaigning on the cheap and hasn't begun to develop a ground game anywhere to do the hard work of campaigning in the states. He has no grassroots staffers anywhere, hasn't bought any ridiculously-expensive teevee time, and doesn't seem inclined to do so. One might think he feels he doesn't need any of that, but only time will tell. Like Jordan Klepper said on The Daily Show, "Donald Trump has reached peak asshole." Brilliant!

Yeah. It's mostly, as you know, a couple of guys pissing on each other. And, as usual, no one addressing the actual points I made, but tossing in the predictable and entirely baseless claims about what I believe. I appreciate your support, however; but if I thought the usual suspects online were the only audience I reach, I'd hang myself.

For The Sake of My Sanity

Some will know me from my other blog, "Surgeonsblog." Of late I've given over to frothing at the mouth as the world descends into stupidity, and our politics and our citizens seem, in numbers enough to be meaningful, unable to see it. So for now I'm leaving surgery writing behind, if for no other reason than to defuse and diffuse my unrelenting sense of doom, and with no expectation of making a difference. These are things that, to me, are obvious. Except that, apparently, they aren't.

RWS™

RWS™: For those who drop by here in the middle, and wonder what it means: it's my shorthand for Right Wing Screamers, which includes such a long list it's tiresome to type it. (I distinguish these blowhards from thoughtful conservatives, of whom I sort of take it on faith that there must still be some.) You know who I mean: Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Breitbart (RIP), Malkin, Savage, Levin, Ingraham, Doocey (more of a drooler than a screamer), Hewitt, Goldberg, Gingrich, Kristol, Scarborough (+/-), Bachmann, Inhofe, Bond, Broun, Boehner, Kelley, Santorum, Cain. To name but a few. Behold them in their unrepentant disregard for reality: the RWS™